Asian stocks remain soft-footed as Japan sees surprise decline in exports

Asian-session equities have seen a softer landing on Thursday, with the major of bourses seeing mild declines as broader markets remain tepid on risk appetite.

Trade concerns remain a major barrier to bull runs, with the US-China trade war ramp-up remaining close to the surface, and worries about an increasing economic slowdown in both China and Japan pushing down buyers' appetite.

Japan saw their trade export figures decline for the first time in almost two years as knock-on trade tensions begin to spread more noticeably into other Asia regions, and Japan's Nikkei 225 index is back -0.75% with the Tokyo Topix index is down -0.33%. China's share are lopsided in the red as well, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng index down softly at -0.15%, but the Shanghai CSI 300 index is seeing steeper declines, down -1.51%. 

Australia's ASX 200 bourse is almost perfectly flat on the day, up 0.01%, while emerging markets are seeing noticeably more bullish potential with the MSCI broad Asia-Pacific index being the only winner in the ASEAN window, clipping higher by 0.78% for Thursday.

Nikkei 225 levels to watch

The Nikkei's bull run from last week's low is beginning to face challenges, with the index getting turned away from 22,900.00 for two straight days this week, and the index is softening its stance back into 22,650.00 as trade worries deflate buyers' hopes. The index is now clipping into yesterday's lows, and a continued slide will see the Nikkei challenging the last major swing low at 22,030.00.